Tag: broken

Broken by Julie Weiss

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Broken

At the park, you stagger your way
through shrieks and shenanigans,

crying. Your arm, once a smooth
stroll from shoulder blade to fingertip,

now a mountain hike, its slopes
insurmountable. My heart landslides,

tumbles over the edge of your pain.
Whatever I was holding in my hand

jolts the earth. You walk towards us,
your mothers, trying not to cry, to tough

the bones back into place as though
your fortitude wore scrubs and a mask.

When children fall in films,
parents always falcon on the scene,

but not me. For a few fractured
seconds, I´m all knees and vertigo,

hanging upside down from a bar
of shock, unable to drop.

How many times have I, searching
for the rewind button, pressed

remorse instead? You, halfway
to the hospital by now. Your sister

plunged in friends´ hugs, inconsolable
as a skeleton. The sky birdless,

hunched in facepalm, my cheeks
slap-red. Your arm will heal, son,

but know this: there are moments
in a mother´s life that never

fuse back together.

*

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, was published in February 2025 by Kelsay Books. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was a finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja” and was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Her work appears in ONE ART, Variant Lit, The Westchester Review, Up The Staircase Quarterly, and others. She lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/.

Two Poems by Allison Zhang

~ ONE ART ~ 7 Comments

Porcelain Theory

I collect broken things—
a teacup with no handle,
a mirror in four neat pieces,
a cello string I wore
as a bracelet.

My mother says
everything breaks
if you press too hard—
voice, faith,
the dial on the radiator.

There’s worship
in returning to what’s fractured.
Gold veins in bowls.
A bruise teaching
the body to be louder.

Today I broke
the last plate on purpose—
just to hear
what it sounds like
to start again.

*

Etymology of a Shrug

The neurologist says it’s non-progressive.
Which feels generous.

At breakfast, my grandfather lifts a spoon,
stalls midair, points at the cereal.
Calls it sky.

I nod. Sure.
Everything falls eventually.

He once told me
the first English word he learned was wait.
It was also the last thing he said to me.
Maybe that’s coincidence.
Or a loop.

At the DMV, he gave his birth year as 1857.
Said his job was “still becoming.”
The clerk didn’t blink. Typed it in.

When he was nine,
a soldier asked his name.
He said it. They laughed.
That was the year he stopped answering.

The MRI lit his brain like a city after rain.
One hemisphere fogged.
The other—
a grocery list in half-light:
eggs.
mercy.
something that starts with forgive.

Yesterday, he pointed at a crow and said God.
Then laughed,
like the punchline arrived late.
I wrote it down anyway.

At the root, shrug means “to writhe.”
Which might explain how I love—
and why I wear jackets
with sleeves past my knuckles.

*

Allison Zhang is a poet and writer based in Los Angeles. An immigrant and bilingual speaker of English and Mandarin, she writes about inheritance, memory, and the quiet ruptures of daily life. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Pithead Chapel, SWWIM Every Day, Sky Island Journal, and others. She is the author of An Everlasting Bond, honored by the BookFest Spring Awards and the International Impact Book Awards.

Set by Ralph James Savarese

~ ONE ART ~ 2 Comments

Set

I’ve broken so
many bones,
that the word
fracture might
as well be father.
I love you, fracture…
Each cast was
a coffin, and home
room, a kind of wake
where the mourners
signed my body.
Punning, the doctor
said, “You’re all set!”
Every femur
needs a foster
placement.

*

Ralph James Savarese is the author of three collections of poetry: Republican Fathers; When This Is Over; and, with Stephen Kuusisto, Someone Falls Overboard: Talking through Poems.

Two Poems by Mark Saba

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Flowers in the Dark

The young man holding flowers
delivered our food in three boxes.
Loose potatoes and apples, lettuce

partially wrapped beside a box of butter,
berries, almonds, and Greek cheese.
He wasn’t sure which flowers we liked

so bought three: one, wrapped tulips
and two alstroemeria. Did we like
the purple or peach? He stood

in his buttoned rust jacket, a shadow
of the boy who graduated with my son
six years ago, now a generation

of wise old youth holding flowers
for their elders. Which one don’t you want
he asked. It will look nice

in my apartment. He stood there
six feet away in the dark
having delivered our groceries

holding a bouquet of flowers
that I’m not sure he really wanted
or knew what to do with

once back to his other world
the one without flowers
or any place to put them.

*

The Broken

My brother, my daughter, my father,
my wife. A cloudy eye, piece of leg
and vanishing arm.

An asymmetry in stride, an upbeat cheek
adjacent to uncertain lips.
The visitors come whole, hoping to embrace

the broken pieces of those they’d once known
but have been disassembled
as they try to reconstruct.

Outside, under searing light,
the rehab grounds remain dressed
in autumn finery: greens and golds

atop fiery trees, a harboring mountain,
glass-walled rooms that look out
and allow a looking in. My son,

my husband, my sister, my dear friend.
We hold the pieces of you
and let the pieces fall.

*

Mark Saba has been writing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for 40 years. His book publications include four works of fiction and three of poetry, most recently Two Novellas: A Luke of All Ages / Fire and Ice (fiction), Calling the Names (poetry) and Ghost Tracks (stories about Pittsburgh, where he grew up). Saba’s work has appeared widely in literary magazines around the U.S. and abroad. His is also a painter, and works as a medical illustrator at Yale University. Please see marksabawriter.com.